


The Upside of Goodbye

by GirlKnownSomewhere



Series: Blues & Greens [5]
Category: The Monkees (Band), The Monkees (TV)
Genre: 1960s, 1970s, Band Fic, F/M, Love/Hate, Sequel, Sexual Tension, probably the closest i'll ever get to mike/ann....
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-22
Updated: 2019-11-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:46:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21526204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GirlKnownSomewhere/pseuds/GirlKnownSomewhere
Summary: Three times Mike and Ann uncharacteristically socialized with each other.
Relationships: Mike Nesmith/Ann Moses
Series: Blues & Greens [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1363942
Comments: 6
Kudos: 10





	1. My Share of the Sidewalk

**Author's Note:**

> So this chapter is actually closer to how things ended between Mike and Ann IRL, but I originally changed the setting and context in the multi-chap B&G fic for the storyline's sake (I also wasn't exactly sure of the location of where they were in reality at the time I wrote the fic, heh). But then eventually I kept thinking about how the real version would be fictionalized, so I wrote a slightly modified alternative to fit into the ficverse anyway, lol. ~Enjoy
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own any part of the Monkees or Ann Moses' likeness.

Ch. 1: My Share of the Sidewalk

Santa Monica, November 1968

It was a fairly ordinary day at the Tiger Beat offices. Ann had an interview with the two oldest brothers of the Cowsills that afternoon, but the morning had been relatively breezy. She thought she might have a bite to eat across the street before heading into town for the rest of the day. Ann grabbed her long black coat from the back of her desk chair and placed it over her white blouse and matching black slacks. It had been pretty chilly this week, but she didn’t mind. The cooler weather made the holiday season more festive to her mind. 

Not even five feet into walking outside and tossing her purse over her shoulder, she felt an arm wrap around the same shoulder and lightly hold the top of her arm.

“Annie, it’s been a while.” She instantly recognized the voice as Mike, the aloof Monkee, currently acting as if he hadn’t seen the editor two weeks ago at the premiere of his band’s movie. He donned his usual sunglasses, denim pants, checkered buttoned shirt and a brown jacket.

“Uh, what—”

“I’m taking you to lunch today,” he suddenly revealed.

“What? Right now?” Ann asked perplexed.

“Yep, right now,” he confirmed while directing her to his car. Though she wouldn’t admit it, she was slightly disappointed he didn’t bring his motorcycle. 

Ten minutes later they were sitting opposite each other in a booth of a local barbeque joint, clearly Mike’s choice. Ann had a tall glass of water at her place, while the music artist was on his second order of bourbon. After he swallowed the last of the small glass, he motioned to their waiter for another.

“…Mike did you take me here to show me how drunk you can get? I gotta say, this is one of the more unusual tactics used to try and impress me.” 

He ignored the question while setting the glass on the edge of the table. “This is the best BBQ place in town. You should order the ribs. Or the chicken.”

“Okay…why am I here though?” Ann persisted.

“Ann, how long have we known each other?” Mike kept off topic.

“A little over two years. Though it feels shorter because you ignored me so much,” she responded drolly.

“I’m sure you can understand how tedious answering survey questions can be in the middle of a shoot or recording session,” he suggested.

She sat at a loss for a moment. “Sure…It’s not like I ask questions and report answers for a living or anything.”

Mike’s empty glass was replaced with a new, full one. “You’re pretty good, you know. You’d probably fair a lot better at The Hollywood Reporter or NME fulltime rather than the teenybopper zines.” 

The blonde felt like she was experiencing a vivid dream presently with how surreal the outing was going. “Thanks…But being head editor at my current gig is actually alright, as hard as it might be for you to imagine. Might be a hassle to start all over somewhere new.”

Mike took a big gulp before continuing. “Aren’t you tired of writing down for kids?” 

Before Ann could answer, a waitress stepped up to their table. 

“I’ll have the ribs, and she’ll have the chicken,” he ordered before the waitress took the menus back to the front of the room. Ann didn’t bother to act surprised or bothered at him calling all the shots currently. Mike took another swig.

“Seriously, if I wanted to spend lunch seeing someone wasted, I could’ve just gone to Peter’s house,” she claimed.

He chuckled a little. “You’d probably see more than that over there these days.”

She didn’t want to know what he meant by that vague statement, so she kept asking questions. “Did you honestly take me out to buy me food and give me career advice?”

He slid the minimal glass back and forth a couple of times, contemplating. “You know…I know how I come across on the set…more so in the studio…” He began.

Ann sat unresponsive. _‘He’s seriously getting reflective right now?’_

“You’re not the only one who calls me ‘the difficult Monkee,’” he confessed.

“Oh, I know,” she assured him. “But fortunately I haven’t seen you punch a wall.”

He nodded in memory at her reference to him doing that in anger at the band’s former music supervisor. “I’m just saying…I don’t have a personal vendetta against you.”

“I know,” she repeated. “I figured that out a long time ago.”

He let out a subtle sigh before setting the glass down and leaning back in his seat.

Ann held an arched eyebrow at his current behavior. “But…you know…this revelation would’ve been a lot more useful…two years ago.”

“Well, live and learn,” was all he concluded.

“I was still a teenager when I started covering you guys. Was it really fair to give me the same contempt as the middle-aged superiors pissing you off?” She pushed.

“Do you realize how hard it was for me to lower myself to pop—especially teen pop, when I was already establishing myself with folk?”

She paused in disbelief. “Mike, no one forced you to audition for the show.”

“Well, was I supposed to continue DJing clubs with a one-year-old at home?” He tossed back.

“I don’t know, but taking your frustration out on me didn’t make a difference,” Ann confirmed.

Mike looked uncomfortable for another second before finishing the third glass of bourbon. She chose to carry on with the exchange. “How do you think I felt when I veered back to the junior high crowd for my articles? My classmates ragged on me for writing about Dave Clark 5 and Herman’s Hermits when it was ‘cool’ to listen to Dylan and Donovan.”

“Yeah, I’m sure going from Disneyland to Tiger Beat was a real stretch,” he blurted out.

She closed her eyes in irritation before letting out a breath. “I had writing jobs in between both of those, you know. I interviewed James Brown months before Chuck hired me.”

“God, that trajectory would’ve killed me,” he muttered while running his hand across his face, now a little flushed from the alcohol.

“Well, I’m not you,” Ann plainly commented. A silence lingered between them while she took a long sip of her water.

“I don’t know why you’re so self-conscious about your image still. You can record whatever songs you want, you have respect among your peers, you’re arguably making the most money in the band…” She reminded him.

Mike let his head rest in his hands while leaning on the table. He pensively glanced at her face for half a minute before speaking again. “You have blue eyes…I used to think they were gray…”

Ann stared back blank-faced for a few seconds before saying: “You probably shouldn’t drink so much before eating.” 

She noticed him gulp again while his eyes were still on her. “Annie…I…”

She sat frozen in place, bracing herself for him to drop another confession or maybe finally apologize for his past behavior.

“…Excuse me,” was what he muttered before quickly rushing out of the booth and toward the restroom. Ann sat puzzled at the state of events. Only a minute later their food arrived while Mike was still out of the room. She sighed as she placed her napkin on her lap, hoping she wouldn’t be the one driving them back into town.


	2. Nice to be With You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place immediately following ch. 15 of B&G, but if you don't feel like reading a novella's worth of fanfic, the TL;DR summary for that is Ann spent the morning after Peter quit the band at Mike's place and he told her his theories on why Peter left, and they ended up resolving their issues somewhat with each other. Phew, lol.

Ch. 2: Nice to be With You

Bel Air, December 1968

“You have anything going on this afternoon?”

Ann wasn’t expecting the question from Mike, and slightly raised her brow in surprise. “Oh. Not really, I guess. Why?”

“Feel like sticking around a little more? Not much else planned for the day on our end either,” he suggested leisurely. 

She thought about the offer for a few seconds. Though it was refreshing to have a completely normal meeting with the songwriter; the concept of actually hanging out like legitimate friends was a little foreign to her after their long, tense history. But seeing as how well the morning went, she couldn’t think of any good reason to pass either. “…Sure. Why not,” she replied with a casual shrug.

For the next hour on the small, home studio couch, Ann and Mike had the most genuine, introspective conversation since knowing each other. Ann revealed that even after three years of meeting and interviewing bands, she’s still jealous that it was her older brother who got to meet the Beatles. Mike admitted what she’s always known—that he has plans of forming his own country-rock group ‘someday,’ with her still having a strong feeling that someday was going to be soon. She also found it intriguing that he wanted his future music to be steel-pedal based, which was a sound that wasn’t very ‘Monkeeish.’ Mike even managed to jest once again on how she should turn her columns into something ‘gutsy.’ 

Soon enough, Mike’s 3-year-old son Christian woke up from a nap and joined them for the discussion (which was really just Mike and Ann watching the toddler act adorable and animated on the carpet in front of them). After a while, the reporter realized that she had been in the house for half the day and still had yet to spot Phyllis or their youngest son Jonathan. But before she could ask where they might be, Mike beat her to questioning.

“Want to hear a demo I’m working on?”

Ann was surprised once more at how open Mike was being with her currently. She wondered if he was this personal with all his friends privately, and his cool, mysterious public demeanor really was just a front. It was hard to tell since, save for a random weekend where they were stuck together downtown, she’d only ever communicated with him professionally.

“Oh…” She slowly began. “You sure? I mean, wouldn’t Phyllis…”

He shrugged. “She hears them occasionally already.”

“Well…since you trust my judgment so much…” She responded semi-jokingly.

He lightly smirked while picking up one of the two pairs of headphones by the soundboard. “Of course. I know you’re good for it.” He claimed a wink at the end.  
Ann recognized the wink as one of the many he would frequently sport to the camera on the sitcom. The same winks that would make their young fangirls swoon, but she had never reacted that way before because of their strained backstory. But right now she actually did feel her heart skip a beat right at the endearment. What was that about?

She stepped forward almost cautiously in front of the device and grabbed the headphone as Mike held them out for her. She placed them on before he fiddled with a couple of dials to play the recording. She heard the rhythm of a samba beat and smiled a little at hearing him randomly adlib during the tape. Only about 10 seconds into listening, she could faintly hear Mike say “Oh, wait, I forgot…” and moved right behind her to touch a few more buttons. As he was directly against her to reach whatever he was working with, Ann felt a small wave of anxiety run through her. But it wasn’t from any type of fear or intimidation, but more…intimate. Almost like the same feeling she felt when she first kissed Peter or went to bed with Maurice. _‘What the hell.’_ The longer they stood close to each other, the more she could gradually feel her heart race a little faster, until she panicked. _‘No…no freaking way.’_

Suddenly Ann tossed the headphones on to the soundboard and jumped away from Mike abruptly. The rapid action startled him, clearly not expecting the intense emotion. “What’s wrong? Are you alright?”

She took a big breath to try to calm herself and awkwardly responded: “Uh, yeah. I’m fine. I just…forgot I need to stop by the store on the way home, so…I should do that now before I forget,” she sloppily ended.

Mike gave a nod and flippantly said, “I know my songs can get a polarizing reaction from pop fans, but even this was a bit over the top.”

Ann then quickly tried to explain further. “Oh, no, the demo sounds good!” It wasn’t a lie, the track did sound catchy even with the rough recording. “You know, it’s not every day you hear Brazilian influence in American music, so that’s…groovy.”

He nodded again while placing the headphones back in their drawer. She found herself gazing at him and letting it linger longer than she would have usually meant. When Ann first met the Monkees, Mike was the one she instantly recognized as handsome. But then she would quickly resent his good looks for how brooding he would act around her when she needed an interview. Now that that time period of their history seemed to be slowly passing, she wasn’t sure what to think of him as. She was broken out of her trance when she realized Mike was looking back at her quizzically. Shaking her head as an attempt to clear her mind, she let out without thinking:

“Have you ever gone out with a brunette?”

He continued to look puzzled. “Uh, I’m married.”

The response brought her completely back to reality and now annoyed at how flighty she was behaving currently. Though she also noted that he answered as if he wasn’t married during his fling with Nurit. “No, that’s not—I mean…” She let out another disjointed breath before trying again. “…Micky always makes it sound like you only like blondes…” She awkwardly informed.

Mike gave a look as if he was about to roll his eyes, but then after a split second said instead: “Phyllis is a natural brunette.”

Ann remembered that his wife did actually reveal that to her during one of the handful of interviews they had conducted together. Then she held back rolling her own eyes when she put two-and-two together and realized Phyllis must have colored it blonde when they moved to LA. Mike then broke the short silence. “…What made you think of this?”

Ann opened her mouth to try to give some kind of reason, but nothing would come mentally. Eventually she just came up with: “I was just…wondering…why he would say that…” He didn’t look convinced and she chose that as the moment to grab her bag from the couch.

“I’ll, uh, go now…Thanks for that—this, good demo, good talk,” she rapidly rambled while leaving the room. Rushing to her car, a dozen thoughts ran through her mind. What just happened? Did she seriously begin growing feelings…for Mike? One Monkee attraction was already enough of a headache with Peter, why would she want another? On top of that, she and Mike took forever to even get along cordially, who knows how long that would last if it were more than friendship? And most importantly, Mike wasn’t even close to being available. She’d never consider getting involved with a married man before, famous or not, and she wasn’t going to now. Even if she was the kind of woman to anyway, she already saw what a nightmare that was with him and Nurit. This was just…weird. Maybe it was PMS, or maybe it was the pill talking. Whatever it was, better be gone by tomorrow…


	3. Keys to the Car

Ch. 3: Keys to the Car

Hollywood, April 1970

Ann pushed the front door of the RCA studios open to head back to her car. She had plans today of interviewing a new UK popstar known as Elton John for her ‘America Calling’ column at NME; and then later in the afternoon she was racing over to Mercury to see if she could introduce herself to another new British rockstar going by David Bowie. Mostly she wanted a direct confirmation to the rumor that Davy was the reason the latter changed his last name, which was amusingly also ‘Jones.’ Ann was now at the point where she wasn’t sure where she wanted her career to go. Being head editor had everything she needed in a journalism career, but she was having a tough time accepting that she now has to get used to 7th grader Donny Osmond running out of the room during her interviews; or 10-year-old Susan Cowsill acting like an ‘adorable’ diva. She was a reporter, not a babysitter. She thought since her NME column had been steadily popular for the past couple years, maybe she could convince the publication to hire her for a fulltime staff position. But did she really want to move and acclimate to a whole new country? London was so different from Hollywood, even if they were both major hot spots. 

Right as she turned her car key to open the door, she heard another car door slam to her right, and looked up. Ann found the car to her right belonged to the ‘serious Monkee’ before she set her notebook and purse on her passenger seat.

“Mike?...”

He glanced around to see where his name was coming from. “Annie. What are you doing at the studio on a Friday? I thought you liked to get all your interviews done by the weekend.”

As he was speaking, she noticed two big, full cardboard boxes filled up the backseats of his black car. “What’s going on? Are you guys switching labels?” She would be shocked if that was the case.

“The trio is now a duo, and I am now solo,” he revealed while closing the other door on the opposite side of his car.

Ann’s eyes widened slightly. “What? Really? You quit the group?”

Mike sported a small smirk. “Don’t act all surprised. Weren’t you the one expecting me to split 15 months ago?”

“Well, yeah, but then…you didn’t and the band kept releasing records, so…” She pointed out.

“All things must pass,” he explained plainly.

She leaned against her car pensively as he strolled over to her spot of the lot. “So…now what?”

“Goodbye Monkees, hello First National Band.”

Her face lit up. “Oh, wow, you really did start that country-rock band! That’s great!”

“Yep, none of that power trio shit anymore,” he joked with what Ann could sense was probably a wink behind his sunglasses.

After a thoughtful pause, Ann said: “It’s going to be weird not needing you for articles anymore…”

Mike tilted his head, still wearing the smirk. “What? You haven’t interviewed me in over a year.”

“Oh…well, even when we stopped featuring you, the Monkees were still around and we still profiled Davy, so…I don’t know. I guess it felt like the option was still available,” she explained.

He nodded and casually placed his hands on his hips. 

“I’m sure you’ll appreciate the lack of teenybopper press finally around your promos,” she passed half-heartedly.

Suddenly Mike uncharacteristically reached out and pulled her into a hug. The motion stunned her for a moment before she raised her arms to return the gesture. It was strange for them to be this affectionate, even with the past resentment over. There had been a very brief incident when Ann was visiting his house over the holidays in 1968 where she unusually felt close to him, but passed it off as a fluke and moved on. Then five months later while visiting the Monkees’ ‘Happening’ TV appearance, she suspected Mike of possibly asking her on a date and nipped it in the bud before she could get a confirmation. But right now, this hug felt more like a farewell between two close friends than lovers. Exhaling peacefully, she leaned her cheek into his chest and squeezed a little tighter. She felt him laugh and step away while looking at her with amused shock.

“Well, Ms. Moses,” he started cheekily. “Not only was you reciprocating that hug a pleasant surprise, but you were even the first to squeeze back.”

She couldn’t help but blush at that minor teasing. There was another pause, before Mike’s teasing grew. “So, that proposition offer is still open…”

She smirked and playfully slugged his upper arm, while he let out another chuckle. He then turned to walk back to his car and she followed leisurely. “Don’t forget to plug us in NME. Who knows, maybe Davy’s not the only cowboy from across the pond.”

She nodded contently. 

“And I figured I’d give you a break from that Partridge—or is it Cassidy?—kid taking up your regular issues,” he added as he sat in the front seat.

Ann rolled her eyes at the reference to her more recent version of ‘Mike.’ At least when Mike gave her a hard time while she was on the job, he was still somewhat mature while ignoring her. David was just a brat out to get her. _‘Jeez, I can’t believe I’m going to miss that aspect of Mike too.’_

He turned on his engine and give her one more smile with a nod. She waved softly as she smiled back. “Watch your feet,” he shouted right before mildly pushing the peddle to move the vehicle.


End file.
